


Another Little Piece of My Heart

by Lucky107



Series: In the Ghetto [7]
Category: Mafia (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Interview, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: It doesn't feel like nearly fifty years have gone by since she was last someone's 'little lady'.





	Another Little Piece of My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Piece of My Heart - Big Brother and the Holding Company - 1968

"Can you state your name, ma'am?"  
  
_Ma'am?_  
  
Where, oh where, do the years go?  
  
Nicole remembers a time when boys—not yet men—just like the one sitting opposite her called her 'miss' or, if they were particularly daring, 'little lady' in a drunken bid to score.  Now it seems the boys that age wait on her with a patient posture, indicative of their ageist mentality, and she's become some 'ma'am' to them.  
  
It doesn't feel like nearly fifty years have gone by since she was last someone's 'little lady'.  She was just an ignorant youth with the entire world in the palm of her hand, but those days are long gone.  
  
Christ, she could be this kid's _grandmother_.  
  
Nicole tugs at the hem of her shirt, sober now for going on thirty years, and she has to mentally scold herself for dredging up those damn memories.  The low hum of the equipment fills the silence before she tentatively offers, "Nicole Burke."  
  
The man opposite her hastily jots something down in a notepad and Nicole purses her lips sternly with impatience.  
  
"You ain't here 'bout me, though," she quips.  "You're here 'bout my old man, 'bout Daniel.  You're here 'bout the heist in New Bordeaux - an' everything else that came with it."  
  
It's no secret by now.  Nicole gave the men her consent to bring the film equipment into her home, quaint and tidy, so that she might provide them with an interview for their documentary.  Despite not being an active participant on the night of the heist, she was a crucial source of information about Thomas Burke and his affiliation with Lincoln Clay that formed as a result.  
  
But that was also the night Nicole has spent her entire life just trying to forget.  
  
Looking into the face of this young, aspiring nobody, she's not so sure she's ready to unearth those long-buried feelings just to satisfy a stranger's curiosity... but then again, she's not so sure she'll ever _really_ be ready.  
  
The interviewer's eyes flutter down to the scribbled notes in his lap, aware of Nicole's sudden discomfort and eager to relieve it.  Hesitantly, he asks, "Well, how about you tell us a little bit about Briana Byrne?"  
  
Briana Byrne.  
  
There's a name Nicole didn't think she would be hearing after her explicit disclaimer that Briana was _not_ available for an interview.  Still, the name lightens the tension of the atmosphere in a way that allows Nicole to relax back into her seat and smile.  
  
"Briana Byrne came to New Bordeaux in the summer of 1962—"  
  
  
The conversation taking place in the living room doesn't go unheard.  
  
In fact, through the old ventilation ducts that lie squarely in the bedroom's hardwood floor, Briana Byrne can hear the entire conversation as clear as day - even for the old bird that she's become in her seniority.  
  
Sitting all alone as she listens to the conversation down stairs, for the first time in forty-eight years, she stares out the window into the morning sun rather than down at the framed and fading photograph of the boy she used to know.  
  
And for the first time in forty-eight years her eyes are dry.  
  
  
"My father, he was a lot of things - few of them good," Nicole recalls.  "He started out smuggling moonshine, so he knew about the canals that run beneath the city... and that one of them went right under the Federal Reserve.  It was his idea to use a boat to move the drill into position."  
  
The no-nonsense attitude that guards her heart is the same no-nonsense attitude that's carried her through from her reckless youth relatively unscathed, but the more she talks - the more she remembers - the harder it becomes to hide her heart.  
  
"He was a real son-of-a-bitch, my father.  More than anyone else, I blame _him_ for what happened.  You want to stick your own neck out, fine - but leave your _son_ out of it.  It's his fault Danny died—"  
  
Nicole's voice cracks in a way it hasn't cracked in years.  
  
The stranger opposite her reclines for a moment in order to let her regain her composure.  She's dabbing at her damp eyes with a hanky when an obnoxiously loud floorboard indicates that they're no longer alone.  There on the landing of the stairs stands Briana Byrne.  
  
She's weathered and haggard next to the old photographs of the bright-faced kid propped up around the room and she looks significantly older than Nicole in spite of the opposite being true.  
  
Still, there's a young and starry-eyed wonder in her voice when she asks, "Is that camera running?"  
  
"It is," the man conducting the interview says.  "Can you state your name for me, please?"  
  
"Why, I'm Briana Byrne."


End file.
